


Leave The Dead Behind

by LokiCobalt (orphan_account)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Apocalypse Horror, Apocalypse Survival, Apocalypses Cause A Lot of Problems, Awkward Daryl, BAMF Daryl, BAMF Rick, Daryl Dixon/Rick Grimes Feels, Daryl and Feelings, Daryl and Rick Know The Future, Divorce Apocalypse Style, Do-Over, Each Chapter is a New Episode, Fight the Dead Fear the Living, Fix-It, Hunters & Hunting, LOTS OF SPOILERS, M/M, Protective Rick, Rick Wakes Up a Week Earlier Than Cannon, Second Chances, Series Spoilers, Starts at The Beginning, Survival Horror, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Zombie Apocalypse, sort of rebirth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 05:16:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2761028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/LokiCobalt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do you do when you wake up in a hospital, to realize your whole life has been a dream? A True dream, of things that have happened and will happen, but a dream nonetheless. Rick Grimes was fifty three years old when he died, and having lived through the apocalypse for over two decades, having lost everything, and everyone he cared for time and time again, well that changes a person. Maybe it's a good thing that his dream is also a reality, because Rick is a monster now, and monsters don't belong in perfect worlds. But at least he isn't alone. With Daryl and Rick aware of all that will happen, can they save their apocalypse family from certain death? Can they change fate?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave The Dead Behind

**-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-**

**136KRONOS**

**Leave the Dead Behind**

**Chapter One – Days Gone Bye**

**-.-.-.-.-.-**

**-.-.-.-.-.-**

Rick Grimes is fifty-three years old, and he is dying.

Daryl used to joke about how they would die. Each guess worse than the last. Every theory causing the two of them to cackle relentlessly in the face of it all, even as the others gave them looks as if the two of them were crazy. And maybe he was, maybe they were, because Rick and Daryl had been through hell and back and right back into Satan’s asshole with each other. After Carl died, Daryl was the one to glue him back together. The same as Rick had stitched him back together after Beth had died. The girl was their hope, their unofficial daughter, and Dawn shot her down right in front of them both. So maybe they were insane, but it was better to laugh it off so that they would not go lose their minds from the crippling horror this world instilled.

He never would have guessed he would die like this though. He is chocking on his own blood, has been for days. The smell of decay and infection is so strong, confusing the walkers surrounding him to the point they do not realize he is not like them. They move without going down to bite him, and Rick is too paralyzed to move even if they did. Daryl shuffles nearest to him, having already died of the same gunshot Rick is currently dying of. It went through his heart, shattered and fractured its way into Rick’s chest. Daryl died instantly, in his arms, but it has been three days if the sun shining through the window is anything to go off, and Rick is still hanging on by a thread. For what purpose he does not know, but the men who killed them clearly had no qualms over leaving them all to become walkers.

He and Daryl were the only two left, now Daryl is dead, and Rick will be soon enough. It is only a matter of time. Still, he has lived a good life considering. How many people can say they survived nearly two and a half decades in an apocalyptic world, especially with the other humans?

He coughs up some blood and the Walkers turn their creepy glazed eyes on him. Oh, shit. He had been doing so well too. Daryl is the one that leans down, in a sick parody of the way he used to before he died. The last thing he knows is Daryl’s teeth, the smell of rotten flesh, and then there is nothing.

\--

Disoriented, in pain, and weak. That is how Rick feels right now. Being a walker is not so bad, actually. On the contrary, it is remarkably similar to waking up in the hospital all those long years ago. Back when he was still innocent, with barely any blood on his hands. And maybe he is a little different from the other walkers, because he can think, he can remember, and he knows the walkers cannot. Rick blinks, the blinding white focuses like adjusting the lenses of a scope, and he is left staring at a white ceiling. He has only been in three hospitals since the beginning of the end, but he would remember that ceiling anywhere. Twenty-four years later and he still remembers every detail of this hospital room.

Has it all been a dream? He turns his head the other way and his eyes land on a familiarly hideous vase. Its kitschy sapphire faux-oriental print and withered flowers almost causing him to crack up despite it all. _Fess up Shane. Did you steal that from your Grandma Jean’s house?_ He had said so long ago, coughing and hacking as he struggled to rasp the words, laughing at his best-friend’s expense. Oh, how funny he thought he was being.

He stays on the bed for a little longer after pulling all the wires off, willing his legs to move. Two and a half months in a coma does not make for a very fit person, especially when there have not been any nurses to take care of him. Speaking of nurses, unless his dream was real, then shouldn’t they be coming by now to welcome him back to the land of the living? He has been awake for a few hours, according to the flickering lights, but he has not seen anyone else. He stands up from the bed, his legs still shaky from the coma, but at least he does not fall down this time.

“Nurse?” He calls out, raspy and hoarse from disuse. There is no answer, but he was not expecting one. It only confirms that the world is not different. Of course, that was a stupid thing to be his first word in the apocalypse. “Come at me, ya undead fucks!” He yells, copying Daryl’s southern drawl, not that it is much different from his anyways. Again, no answer, and again, he was not expecting one.

Then again, maybe that is a good thing, because the Rick Grimes of back then would have arrested him on sight. He cannot stop moving like a predator, or a hunter, and he is too damaged to live in the materialistic world that had been reality before the walkers came. Rick Andrew Grimes-Dixon is a monster, and monsters do not belong in supposedly perfect safe worlds.

And he probably is not even a Dixon any longer, and it may take a long time to seduce Daryl back into his arms. Maybe… No. He hopes someone else has their memories, and if other’s do, he hopes to fucking god Daryl Dixon is one of them.

Rick moves into the bathroom and takes a long desperate drink of the cold slightly foul tasting water. It is not even close to the worst he’s had to drink, which is by far the piss they learned to distill years back. Or, they will learn how to years from now. It is all the same to him.

He looks into the mirror. You learn things living in a world where you have to survive, where adapting, changing, learning is the only way to pull through, and Rick has been surviving for years. You learn how to tell how much time has passed from the hair of your chin, things like that. If his guess is correct, he has only been out for just over two months. He has not been out for as long. A week less at most. Three days at least. It is not hard to figure out, though it is strange to think he woke up earlier than he did in the dream, or other life, or reality, or whatever the hell it was. It is a good thing though, because more time is always good. If he plays it right, he might be able to save Morgan’s wife, and convince them to come back with him. Maybe he can save Morgan and his family, and save the man from going crazy, even if it does make him a better man eventually.

Rick walks through the hospital, checking every room he can without alerting the dead. There is a nurse’s locker room, and he changes into some clean clothes, just stupid hospital scrubs but it’s better than wandering around in an open gown and soiled boxers like he did last time, after changing his own bandages. They really are rank, festering wounds not nearly as bad as the stench of the ones that he died of, but bad nonetheless. There are a couple duffle bags with the hospital logo and Red Cross sewn onto the black, and he empties them out so he can fill them with meds and other supplies. He thinks once upon a time he would have felt bad about looting the place, but that was a long time ago. Now he only has the obligation to protect his team, his family, and this hospital is a potential smorgasbord. A fucking treasure trove.

He fills the first bag with medicine, everything ending in cin or cillin and anything else that looks useful, but also medical supplies. The second he fills with what little food and drinks he can find by breaking into the vending machines. It is not much, but it is also a shit ton more than they had last time, and maybe he can save some of the others. It helps that there are a couple silencers in a mini fridge, a crowbar keeping one of the doors just a bit more secure, and a couple axes in emergency boxes. No one wants to ransack a place that looks like the devil’s privy. At least, no one would dare considering how early into the apocalypse it is. People still had a small amount of ethics, not much, but a tiny amount.

He gets home the same as he did last time, stabbing the half-eaten woman through the head with the crowbar as he passes her. The red bike is exactly where he remembers, and he peddles his way back to his house. He does not sit around or scream for his family. Laurie had told him the whole story, and they had been in that camp for two months when Rick came back. Daryl and his brother had only been there for two weeks. Glenn had only been there for one month. All the others had found the rock quarry together after meeting on the highway along the way. He does not need to call for them when they will not be there. He gathers the emergency firearms he hid from his family, the ones he so stupidly forgot last time, and the knives from the kitchen drawers. He throws non-perishable food that was left into a bag, and then drags his bags to the next house and repeats the process. By the time he’s finished pillaging every house on the street except the one Morgan and his boy were in last time, he has amassed more food and weapons than he thinks the others will have ever seen in one place.

A baseball bat, fishing gear, two machetes, a couple tents, about fifty large kitchen knives, four handguns, and a long bow that Daryl might like despite his preference of crossbows. If he does not want it, Rick certainly will, because it is how Daryl taught him after all. He shoves everything into backpacks, suitcases, and duffle bags that were abandoned in the panic of leaving before the hoards ate them all. He needs his car, to put everything in. he cannot carry everything, least of all with the wound. He decides to take a short break, locking his home with his loot inside so no one can get it if something happens. He carries two guns and a machete to the porch with him and sits down.

Four hours later, he is blocking a shovel being swung at his face by Morgan. The man looks surprised. “That’s not very nice.” Rick says softly as Dwaine comes running up to the two of them.

“I thought you were one of them.” Morgan says. “A walker.”

A smile tugs at the corner of rick’s mouth. “I didn’t realize I smelled so bad.” He answers. Morgan gives him a rather put-off look. “Rick Grimes.” He extends and hand and Morgan takes it.

“Morgan Jones.” He points over his shoulder. “This is my son Dwaine.”

“Nice to meet yawl.” He answers. “Got a wife?”

Morgan looks pained. “She got bit yesterday. She didn’t make it.”

Rick frowns. He was hoping he could save her. “I’m sorry for your loss. I lost my wife and son, but I am not sure if they are dead or not. Not knowing kills me, because at least if I had to take them out I’d know. I got a man to find to, one who saved my life. My best friends. I like to believe that they’re together, safe somewhere.” Of course, he knows exactly where they are, but that does not change anything. He still misses the three of them, even Judith who he has known for a while was not his child by blood. Laurie became pregnant with his daughter the night before he came back, but that never made Judith any less his daughter, or any less Grimes. Judith was his daughter, even if Shane was the reason she existed.

“I’m sorry.” Morgan says. “We have a house a couple down from here. You can join us if you’d like.”

“That’s very kind o’ you.” Rick says, standing. He winces and Morgan pulls a gun on him. “Relax, it’s a gunshot wound.” He assures. “I ain’t been bit or scratched or lethally injured, so you can get that gun outta my face.”

“Why would I care if you were fatally wounded?” Morgan asks as he takes the gun away from Rick’s head.

Rick inwardly curses. “I ain’t been awake very long.” He tells the man. “Woke up earlier in a hospital to find everything like this. I know about the dead, the ones they put down, and the ones they didn’t. It doesn’t matter if you are bit or scratched. You die; you wake up as one of them things. I’ve seen it.” Morgan and Dwaine look pale. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”

A walker comes onto the street, and Rick does not stop to think. He grabs the machete from his belt and walks right up to it, slicing its head in half. Once again, he strains his shoulder and side, but he ignores it in favor of wiping the blood off with a rag. He looks up to see the other two staring at him in horror, though Morgan looks a bit awed in a disgusted way. “Noise attracts the bastards.” He explains. “So does smell.”

“Smell?” Morgan gasps. “They can smell the difference.”

“Can’t you?” Rick raises an eyebrow. “Cover yourself in walker guts and they don’t realize you aren’t one of them. If you cut off their arms, remove the bottom jaw and upper row of teeth, you can drag them around by rope or chain and the walkers won’t see you either.” Both of them look horrified by the very thought. “It may save your life one day.”

“How do you know all this stuff anyways?” Dwaine asks.

“I’ve been around.” Rick answers. “It’s hard to explain. I can teach ya what I know, if ya want. How ta shoot a gun. How to respect the weapon. How to kill them without a gun, so ya can preserve ammo.”

Dwaine nods enthusiastically, and Morgan does to after a pause. “We ought to get back inside.” He notes. “It’s getting dark.”

It is habit to ask the questions. “How many Walkers have you killed?” Rick asks as he grabs his key from his pocket.

“What?” Morgan looks a bit pale, as though Rick’s question is making him sick.

“I have some questions, same ones I ask everyone before I join them.” He tells the darker man. “How many walkers ya killed? How many people have ya killed? Why?”

“We haven’t kept count of the walkers.” Dwaine is the one to answer. “Don’t know any men we needed to kill. We ain’t got any reason to, I guess.”

“What was that out of your mouth just now?” Morgan looks cross.

“We don’t.” Dwaine corrects himself.

“How about you?” Morgan and Dwaine level him with piercing stares. “You keeping count of the walkers you’ve killed? How many men you killed? Why?”

He wants to give the man the truth. That he has lost count of how many walkers and people he has had to put down. He wants to tell them because it was his job to protect his people, his family, and he would do anything. He cannot tell them this, but he can tell them a half-truth. “I was a Sherriff’s Deputy.” He tells them. “Sometimes the only way to keep my people safe was to kill a man. I have blood on my hands, but all of it has been to protect my family, my people. As for walkers, I have, and I will, kill as many as I must to do the same. Does that answer satisfy you?”

“Well, you can’t be that bad if you a cop.” Morgan shrugs. “Come on.”

“Mind helping me with my bags?” He asks sheepishly. “I stocked up a bit more than I could carry with this wound.”

“I don’t see anything.” Dwaine says confused, even as his father agrees. Rick stands and opens the door of his house, revealing the backpacks, suitcases, duffle bags, and everything else.

Morgan whistles lowly. “Damn.”

Rick laughs. “I figured if I ever manage to find my family, then this haul will be a life saver. Get ourselves a place to hold base camp, and I can keep us alive for a long time with this.”

The three survivors make their way into the house shortly after that, Dwaine and Morgan obviously elated by Rick’s loot. He hopes they will not hate him when they get to see firsthand just how far he is willing to go to protect everyone.

\--

They go to the station the next afternoon, and the boys enjoy their hot showers. Rick enjoys his most, because his mind tells him it has been decades since he last had a real hot shower. Boiled lake and river water in a pail only does so much. He can almost still feel the years of filth built up on his skin. Even so, there have been no nurses or doctors to help clean him down in the coma, and two months of sludge and dead skin built up is not a pleasant feeling, even if it is a familiar one. The boys are long finished by the time the hot water runs out and Rick finally joins them. It feels nice to be clean and shaved. It is a novelty in this new world. It’s nice to smell that stupid clear scent of men’s body soap instead of dirt, but Rick would be lying to say he doesn’t miss the scent of the open forest air.

They clean out the gun rack after they get dressed. Rick isn’t ashamed to admit he has missed the uniform. He missed the hat, though he’d been wearing it when he died, the only thing he had left of Carl. But even more than his nostalgia about the uniform, it almost makes him feel his morality again. Like the piece of himself he lost along the way is right back where it belongs, in the form of a black hat with a Sherriff’s Deputy Star. The hat feels right on his head. It just does.

\--

Rick convinces Morgan and Dwaine to keep fort in the station with him. He spends the next few days teaching them how to use their guns, using the walkers as target practice. He feels strange teaching Morgan, considering how Morgan was the one to teach him how to be proficient with knives. He could probably be an assassin with all he knows from this world, another reason he is grateful the universe is not so sick as to force him back into society.

Before long, it is time for Rick to leave to Atlanta to meet his family, only this time he manages to convince Morgan and Dwaine to come with him. They siphon gas from the tanks of some other cars, filling up the cruiser’s tank as well as two gas cans. With any luck the cruiser will make it to the Rock Quarry and the highway after the zombies attack.

“I just have to make one more stop.” Rick says, stopping the cruiser at the house. “I forgot a photo of my wife and boy. Also, my grandfather once gave me a wilderness survival manual. It may come in handy. It won’t take long.”

Rick gets out of the car and crosses over to his room, taking the picture out of the bottom of is drawer, and then moving to the closet where the box with his grandfather’s survival manual is located. He doesn’t really need it, but it can be a great help for the others. He digs through the box and pulls the blue hard cover book out triumphantly, fanning through the slightly yellowed with age pages of the well cared for and used book, every page marked with a dog ear crease. A stack of folded papers fall out of the center of the book, and Rick picks them up curiously. He tucks them into his back pocket and joins the other two.

Within seconds they are back on the road, headed to the city. For Morgan and Dwaine, it is for the hope of a refugee center, but for Rick, knowing what he’s getting into, it is to Glenn and the others. Maybe, if he’s lucky, they can get in and out of the city without alerting the walkers of their presence, but if not, he has a plan.


End file.
